Garrett accepts responsibility for scheme

Former environment minister Peter Garrett has accepted "ultimate responsibility" for Labor's botched home insulation program but insists others should share the blame.

Four installers lost their lives under the Rudd government scheme in 2009 and 2010, and Mr Garrett told a royal commission on Tuesday that, although he visited a similar New Zealand scheme in 2007, he hadn't been briefed on fatalities there because his priority had been to speak about whaling.

The commission is investigating what advice Labor received and whether the deaths of Matthew Fuller, Rueben Barnes, Mitchell Sweeney and Marcus Wilson could have been avoided.

Mr Sweeney's brother, Justin, said Mr Garrett should have halted the program after the first death.

"One death is enough, not four," he said outside the Brisbane Magistrates Court.

The program was terminated on February 19, 2010.

In his statement to the inquiry, Mr Garrett said he was ultimately responsible for the scheme, although then senator Mark Arbib oversaw elements of the government's $42 billion stimulus package.